Tuesday, December 23, 2014

At Lessons and Carols the other night, we sang the LSB version of a Gerhardt Christmas hymn:

Children, from the sins that grieve you,
you are freed.

It struck me because TLH says,

Brethren, from all ills that grieve you,
you are freed.

It's like what Matthew tells us (chapter 8). While Isaiah says, "He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows," Matthew quotes it as "He took up our infirmities and bore our sicknesses."

Even though the sicknesses wouldn't be here but for sin,
even though sin is the cause of illness and death,
sometimes it nice to know that Jesus isn't "just" the cure for our sinfulness, but is also the one who bore the brokenness of our bodies, our snotty noses, our achy joints, our headaches, our mental shortcomings, and our physical weakness. And because He took those infirmities to the cross, that gives us a cure. The cure.

"From all ills that grieve you
you are freed.
All you need
I will surely give you."

Monday, December 22, 2014

Pie-filling spilled over on Saturday night. The oven was smoking.
Maggie and I have snotty, coughy colds.

First item of business Sunday morning? Stepping in a big pile of kitty-barf. Squish!

Then I caught myself right before I walked out the door to church. Dinner in the crockpot, ready to cook while we were gone. But it was turned off. Flipped the switch on -- whew!

Came home from church to find dinner cooked (whew!) but the house cold. Twelve degrees lower than the thermostat was set. Arranged for the repairman to arrive first thing Monday morning. I couldn't manage to start a fire in the fireplace, but Gary fixed it when he came home from church. I couldn't bake for heat, as the oven hadn't been fixed from the pie-spill. A friend loaned us her space heater. Blankets, fire, two space heaters, all the body heat contained to one room -- we didn't turn into popsicles.

Adjusting blankets in the evening, we managed to knock over a pint of cranberry juice. Not cranberry cocktail, all nice and watered down. 100% cranberry juice. I used a lot of Resolve, and the stain did come out. Woo hoo!

Repairman arrived this morning. Weird breakdown, but the part was available somewhere locally. He had it fixed by 9:30. We can now [again] feel a noticeable temperature-difference when entering the garage from the house. Honest and knowledgeable tradesmen are gold.